Title: Rethinking Masculinity Studies: Past – Present – Future

Guest Speaker: Prof Stefan HorlacherLink opens in a new window (Dresden University of Technology, Germany, EUTOPIA Alliance Partner)

Convenor: Dr Emrah AtasoyLink opens in a new window (English and Comparative Literary Studies & Institute of Advanced Study)

Date-Venue: 22 May 2023 Monday, 13:00-15:00, TEAMSLink opens in a new window

Dear Colleagues,

We warmly invite you to our guest Prof Stefan Horlacher's talk “Rethinking Masculinity Studies: Past – Present – Future" held at 13:00 on Monday 22nd May 2023.

Though published almost 30 years ago, Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity still remains of key importance for masculinity studies. Therefore, this presentation takes Connell’s work as a starting point to ask which other approaches have partially replaced or supplemented Connell’s work, such as deconstructive, narratological, intersectional and comparative approaches, to name but a few. In a second step, this intervention inquires to which extent Western masculinity is – or is not – in crisis, and in a third and final step, new perspectives for masculinity studies are introduced. Here, I argue that when thinking about masculinity, postcolonial research, questions relating to migration, ageing studies and disability studies but also concepts of non-binary and genderqueer identities need to be taken into account. Moreover, it is crucial to reflect on the situatedness and relativity of the knowledge produced by masculinity studies, to decenter the "global Northern and Western knowledge" (Gottzén et al.), and to ask how colonial and patriarchal relations influence the genealogy and current research practices in masculinity studies.

Stefan Horlacher is Professor of English Literature at Dresden University of Technology. He taught at the University of Mannheim, was visiting scholar at Cornell University, at Kent State University, at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad (India), and Distinguished Max Kade Visiting Professor at The Ohio State University. Moreover, he was guestprofessor at the Universities of Colombo (Sri Lanka), Wroclaw, Trento and Bergamo. Horlacher is the author of two monographs and the editor or coeditor of 24 books and special journal issues, as well as of two book series. His monograph, Conceptions of Masculinity in the Works of Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence (2006, in German), won the Postdoctoral Award of the German Association of Professors of English. His latest publications are Post World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture (with K. Floyd, 2013; 2nd ed. 2016), Configuring Masculinity in Theory and Literary Practice (2015); Masculinity: An Interdisciplinary Handbook (with B. Jansen and W. Schwanebeck (2016, in German), Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives (2016), Contemporary Masculinities in the UK and the US: Between Bodies and Systems (with K. Floyd, 2017) and the special issue “Comparative Masculinity Studies and the Question of Narrative”, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur (IASL) 43/2 (with W. Erhart 2018). He is currently working on a research project on “Contemporary Sri Lankan Literature and Art, Nation-Building and the Creation of a New Community.”